


macushla

by kafkas



Category: The Terror (TV 2018), The Terror - Dan Simmons
Genre: Alternate Universe - His Dark Materials Fusion, Daemon Prejudice, F/M, Gen, M/M, Period Typical Attitudes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-03
Updated: 2018-06-03
Packaged: 2019-05-17 17:48:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14836320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kafkas/pseuds/kafkas
Summary: The Oxford grant commission had decreed quite firmly that only those bearing boreal dæmons should be present aboard the expedition. There were, of course, exceptions – most navy men boasted dogs – though how Fitzjames and his preening oncilla had twisted the board’s arm in their favor remained a mystery.A series of drabbles set in theHis Dark Materialsuniverse.





	macushla

**Author's Note:**

> It's been an aeon since I read _His Dark Materials_ , so please forgive me any discrepancies.  
> \- _Cailleach_ is a term I devised, in keeping with the original series, meaning Portugese (as in, _Portus Cale_ ).  
> \- _Macushla/Mo chuisle_ = my pulse (Irish Gaelic).  
>  \- _Kissaviarsuk_ = gyrfalcon (Inuktitut)  
>  \- _Ikinngut_ = friend (Inuktitut)  
>  \- _Pamiuttok_ = otter (Inuktitut)  
>  \- _Qujanaq/qujanarsuaq_ = thank you/very much (Inuktitut)

 

The Oxford grant commission had decreed quite firmly that only those bearing boreal dæmons should be present aboard the expedition. There were, of course, exceptions – most navy men boasted dogs – though how Fitzjames and his preening oncilla had twisted the board’s arm in their favor remained a mystery. Francis despised both he and the creature, which threw Sorcha into such insufferable fits of jealousy. Sorcha too desired now a gold pendant. Sorcha too wanted to eat out of a fine china bowl.

‘Such frippery doesn’t befit you, _mo chuisle_.’ And it was true. Sorcha was a haggard, greying thing, not some exotic beauty to be fawned over by giggling society girls. ‘Leave that to Apólonia.’

‘Have you heard what they’re saying?’ Her front paws rested upon his bureau, a transgression he had not the heart to scold her for. ‘They say he’s the illegitimate son of some Cailleach noblewoman. That that’s why she looks so – foreign.’

‘Who’s ‘they’?’

‘Edward and Charis.’

‘It’s either one or the other, you chit.’

‘Charis,’ Sorcha admitted, sheepishly.

‘And you trust every word that comes out of that hedgehog's mouth, do you?’ Francis threw his dæmon a pointed glare. ‘I won’t have you parroting such craven remarks. You better than anyone should know it is not through providence of birth that we might judge a man's worth but –’

‘— through his valor,’ Sorcha finished, smiling her queer, wolfish smile, ‘Tales of which Commander Fitzjames is all too keen to regale us with.’

Francis, slumped on the chaise, could not help but smile back, yet this – as did too many of his expressions of late – turned quickly sour. ‘Charis is probably jealous,’ he muttered, reaching toward the liquor cabinet, ‘They’d have both liked to serve under Sir John, I imagine. She and Edward.’

‘Oh, don’t you start,’ Sorcha growled, nipping at his hand, ‘Quaff now and I’ll hate you for it come morning.’

Francis hesitated a moment, then lowered his glass to the table with a sigh. ‘This must be a disappointment for you.’

‘Mercy, yes – these quarters aren’t nearly so lavish as Sir John’s!’

Francis proffered his dæmon a flat look. ‘I was speaking of Quillon.’

Here, Sorcha deflated, head sinking down to the carpet. When she next spoke, her voice was a low rumble, barely audible over the zeppelin’s thrumming engine. ‘The matter is finished with. I see no point in worrying over wounds already closed.’

‘He was – unnecessarily harsh.’

‘Yes, well.’ She rolled onto her back and pawed at the air, feigning disinterest. ‘Where dear Sophy has always been so shrewdly gentle in rebuffing your advances, Quillon has never once allowed either of us to labor under false pretenses. It’s his job, I suppose. To protect her.’

‘And we owe it to him,’ Francis agreed, grimly. Even the briefest mention of Sophia Cracroft was enough to throw him into the blackest of moods.

Sorcha surveyed her companion for a long moment, her amber gaze – supine as she was – for once divested of its shaggy curtain. She then gave a great wheeze and, flopping onto her side, appeared to resign herself to the stance.

‘Go on then. Four fingers of tokay. But that’s all.’

 

**________________**

 

When he’d settled, markedly late into her adolescence, she’d been teased relentlessly. Doubtless her nieces and cousins had been expecting something precious and jewel-toned – a hummingbird or a little, diamond-headed viper as became Lady Jane. Certainly there was no end to the suitors, who, believing themselves to be witty, remarked upon Quillon’s gloomy and belligerent nature.

‘I find him a charming and practical creature,’ Francis, as was typical of him, demurred.

‘Last month he almost put Sir James to sleep.’

‘Then I am sure my friend was overstepping his bounds.’

Swaddled against Sophia’s chest, as was the fashion with women of the time, Quillon gave a quiet snigger.

‘Does the little brute ever talk?’ Francis exclaimed, bemused.

‘Oh, he’ll give you an earful if you don’t mind your tongue.’ Slowing to a halt upon the garden path, Sophia breathed deeply of the cool, coastal air. It was in these moments, her eyes closed in contemplation, her countenance strange and canny, that Francis found he admired her the most.

‘If you don’t soften soon, we shall never be married.’ She spoke, of course, to her dæmon.

‘The right suitor would not demand that he soften.’

Here, Sophia opened her eyes, her expression wry. ‘Nobody ever fell in love with a platypus, Francis.’

‘I fear,’ Francis said, gesturing, ‘that you would discount Sorcha’s feelings.’

Both of their gazes strayed to where the wolfhound, skittish of such refined spaces, paced the garden wall, occasionally casting furtive glances in their direction.

‘She grows restless on solid ground. The sea and the sky are her home.’

‘Denied of your affections I fear neither of us will ever feel entirely at ease with the world.’

Sophia smiled, the lines of her face deepening as if in pain.

‘It’s a habit of yours, you know.’

‘What is?’

She sighed, shaking her head, and patted Quillon’s rump as if he were a baby. ‘Saying the sweetest things at the worst possible times.’

 

**________________**

 

Many thought the Skraeling woman a witch, and the Thing that stalked the ice her dæmon. Others believed her to be the familiar of a rampant panserbjørne, an affected species which had been known to abduct humans to such an end. Harry knew these rumors to be falsehoods because he had seen the creature himself – alone atop the _Terror_ ’s rigid frame, Lady Silence had called him down with a piercing whistle: a fine white falcon, the largest Harry had ever seen and, in his winter coat, near indistinguishable from the barren landscape stretched out below them.

‘My word.’ Berenice, having scrabbled away during the initial tumult of talons and feathers, peeped out from behind Harry’s shoulder. ‘That’s a gyr, isn’t it, Harry?’

‘ _Kissaviarsuk_ ,’ Silence offered, and then, with fonder inflection, ‘ _Tarkik_.’

‘T-Tarkik?’ Harry repeated, and in doing so earned himself one of her rare, closed-mouthed smiles.

The falcon – Tarkik – spoke aggrievedly when he approached, but was swiftly dismissed by his companion. ‘ _Ikinngut_ ,’ she muttered, as if speaking to a child, and Harry understood that Silence had just deemed him harmless. That she should maintain such a notion, after being treated so harshly at the hands of his countrymen, filled with with an absurd amount of gratitude. 

‘It’s a pleasure to meet you, Tarkik,’ Berenice offered, shyly, still perched on Harry’s shoulder.

‘ _Pamiuttok_ ,’ the falcon exclaimed, which gave Lady Silence cause to laugh.

‘What? What did he say?’ Berenice cried, afraid that she was being teased, at which point the Skraeling woman turned away in order to speak in low tones with her dæmon. Harry, wishing to respect their privacy, strode to the opposite end of the observation deck, staring out across the forest of seracs to where the _Erebus_ lay, envelope near-deflated and gondola battered beyond hope of repair.

When Harry thought it at last appropriate to return, Tarkik was nothing but a pale reflection of moonlight in the darkness, wheeling steadily out of sight. He heard Berenice’s breath catch in her throat, felt her grip on his shoulder tighten.

‘Oh,’ she croaked, sounding as far gone as her companion felt, ‘Oh, Harry, _look_.’

Harry’s focus, however, was on Lady Silence, her head free of its coverings and her face tipped to the stars. There were tears frozen in tracks down her cheeks. Harry understood in that moment – if not the exact meaning – then the magnitude of whatever had transpired between Silence and her dæmon. Understood, too, that the Skraeling woman had allowed him a small part in this ritual, if only as a bystander.

‘ _Qujanaq_ ,’ he intoned, smoothing his thumbs beneath her eyes, ‘ _Qujanarsuaq_.’

Silence gifted him another one of her smiles, and then, gripping Harry’s gloved hand in her own, spoke a sentence the chaplain did not need a dictionary to grasp.

_It’s cold out here. Let’s go inside._

 

**________________**

 

The aft-ballonet was a ghoulish place John did not venture into without strict orders to do so. Many crewmen used it as a shortcut to the cockpit and observation decks, but the lieutenant would much rather brave the icy external rigging than grope his way through the foul smelling darkness. There were no lights permitted inside the envelope – not even an anbaric torch – for fear of triggering an explosion. Thus John traversed the rickety walkway blindly, relying solely upon his dæmon, Evangelista, to guide them safely forward. 

‘His seat of ease has a draft,’ she was muttering, as often she did when frightened, ‘It’s an airship – of course there are drafts. If there weren’t drafts we’d all be in some deep, deep trouble, I tell you –’

‘Don’t be churlish,’ John murmured, ‘The captain is entitled to his comforts.’

Evangelista was silent a while, though John could tell from the way her talons kneaded the fabric of his greatcoat that she was irritated.

‘I miss Brytain,’ she eventually declared, ‘I miss the Church. We had an office, there. Remember?’

‘There is no shame in living a Spartan lifestyle.’

‘The way we’re headed we’ll die Spartans,’ Evangelista mumbled.

John laughed bemusedly. It was a wonder that he – a temperate and God-honoring man – should be tasked with such an impudent dæmon. ‘ _What_ is that supposed to mean?’

‘We shan’t make it to Cathay.’

‘You sound so terribly sure.’

‘I’ve heard the head chaplain talking. He says there is no Northwest Passage. Says the portal leads somewhere different, somewhere – hellish. That that’s where that –’ here, Evangelista physically recoiled, feathers ruffling, ‘— _Thing_ on the ice came from.’

‘Nonsense. Captain Crozier and the men will have us through come summer. It’s only that the equipment’s frozen.’

‘You, my brother, have an overabundance of faith,’ Evangelista sighed, ‘and a dearth of common sense.’

It was as John was about to object to this that the walkway suddenly shuddered beneath his feet and he stumbled, nearly keeling over the rail and into the envelope below. Evangelista, holding herself very still, let out a low, guarded shriek. Somebody was blocking their path.

‘Who goes there?’ John demanded, shaken.

‘Begging your pardon, lieutenant.’ There came the hiss of a naphtha lamp being lit and, to John’s supreme displeasure, the grinning façade of Cornelius Hickey swam into focus, his stoat dæmon, Izett, slung about his shoulders like a living, chittering muffler.

‘Put that out!’ John exclaimed, quickly cupping his hand over the casement. Hickey watched him with no small amount of humor.

‘It shan’t ignite, sir.’ His eyes, jaundiced in the yellow light, rolled toward the ballonet’s cavernous ceiling. ‘There’s scarcely enough hydrogen in here to lift us free of this ridge, let alone power the main thrusters.’

‘I didn’t realize you were an expert in the field of aerodynamics, Mister Hickey.’

The caulker shrugged, bashful. ‘M’not. It’s just horse sense.’

John smiled thinly. He knew Hickey’s game. Knew how he liked to appear naïve to the world. Had the lout overheard any of Evangelista’s misgivings?

‘Is Mister Gibson with you?’

‘No.’ Hickey blinked, innocently. ‘Why would he be?’

Why indeed. ‘You two are oft seen together.’ Hanging off of each other. Whispering to each other like sweethearts, Gibson’s inverted dæmon making cow-eyes at Izett. ‘I had assumed you were friends.’

‘We are acquainted.’ Here, Hickey at last saw it fit to dim the naphtha lamp, the flame pulsing blue between them, picking out his freckles. The effect was something akin to a stained-glass window. Ironic, as John highly doubted he had ever stepped inside such a place of worship. ‘Y’won’t find William here, though. He’s wary of the envelope, he is.’

‘Gives him the collywobbles,’ the stoat chimed in.

 _He’s not alone there_ , John thought. That Hickey should gain pleasure from loitering in such a place, neglecting his duties, did not surprise him in the least. His dæmon should have settled as a rat. Or perhaps a spider. Something cowardly which crept in the shadows. Not a creature so – lovely.

‘Captain Crozier,’ John snapped, blustering, ‘His – quarters. There is a draft. See you do not dawdle here when there is work to be done.’

He’d been hoping to find the head caulker but John no longer wished to remain within the ballonet a minute longer.

‘Right you are, sir.’

Clumsily, the small man maneuvered his way around John on the walkway, his abseiling equipment striking him on the nose as he passed. Evangelista hooted indignantly, flapping her wings.

‘And put that bloody light out,’ John barked.

A moment passed, and then –

Darkness. John shivered, waiting until he was sure Hickey was gone before once more plunging ahead.

‘That boy frightens you,’ Evangelista noted, impassively.

John pursed his lips. He did not in that instant trust himself enough to answer her prudently.

 _For even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,_ he thought, retreating inward, _I will fear no evil. The Lord is with me. His rod and His staff, they comfort me –_

 

**________________**

 

The decision to confine himself to his rooms had been a simple one. Francis was not a man in the habit of deluding himself. Even if he could gather his senses long enough to take breakfast, to brief the officers, Sorcha, he knew, would be rabid with tremens. Already she had bitten Jopson when the lad had attempted to slide a pillow under her head. Francis didn’t like to picture what might happen should he put her in a room with Apólonia.

He felt Sorcha’s pain more keenly than he did his own, as if his body were a far away thing, viewed through the wrong end of a telescope. He suspected it was because she was not a creature built to withstand such things. Neither, in truth, was Francis.

That Jopson’s dæmon should be named Patience was fitting, for it was she who watched over them both when her companion was otherwise indisposed. Paws folded demurely as a lady, she sat sentinel as the spasms wreaked their havoc – a calm, dark presence Francis only vaguely registered in the midst of his delirium, a pair of eyes blinking out at him from the shadows. She did not pass judgement. If he ever disgusted her, he had yet to see her show it.

‘That creature should be canonized,’ he managed to slur one evening, after Jopson had allowed her some reprieve.

The steward had scoffed at this.

‘Both of you,’ Francis insisted, ‘Stood before the Magisterium.’

‘Captain Fitzjames would be apoplectic with jealousy.’

‘Yes, he would.’ Francis chuckled, and instantly regretted doing so. His throat felt packed full of razors. ‘How is the poor fellow? Coping?’

‘Oh yes. I daresay he’s taken the matter in stride.’

Even with a warm flannel over his eyes, he could hear it. ‘You’re smiling, Jopson.’

‘Hardly, sir.’

‘He is,’ Sorcha reported, morosely, from the foot of the bed.

‘What’s happened? If it’s something disastrous I don’t want to hear it.’

‘I wouldn’t say _disastrous_ , sir.’ There came the sound of water sloshing in a basin, and then the flannel was lifted. Jopson regarded him with guilty amusement. ‘He’s planning a costume party.’

‘A _party?_ ’ Francis exclaimed, the force with which he did so launching him into a coughing fit.

Jopson thumped him on the back heartily. ‘Yes, sir. Carnivale. Captain Fitzjames believed it would raise morale.’

‘A party?’ Francis repeated, astonished, ‘Sir John’s lapdog would turn this zeppelin into a den of iniquity? Has he been hit upside the head?’

‘I resent that term,’ Sorcha growled.

‘What term?’

‘ _Lapdog_.’

‘It ought to be good fun, sir,’ Jopson placated, ‘And I doubt Captain Fitzjames would allow the festivities to get out of hand.’

‘Well, I can hardly stop him now, can I?’ Francis huffed. _A party!_

‘He should go as Bacchus,’ mumbled Sorcha, ‘Apólonia can draw the chariot.’

 

**________________**

 

He'd sensed it as soon as he saw her. All about her there was the pull of the void, as one feels stood before the maw of a gaping chasm. Her skin, when he tugged her toward him, away from the fire, felt filmy and insubstantial – as if she were nothing but a projection viewed through a magic lantern, close to slipping from his grasp.

She came back to herself, eventually. They doused her with cold water, shone bright lights in her eyes. He was even compelled, much to his distaste, to strike her, but in the end it was Silence who had the last say. It was Silence who, he felt, _chose_ to return to them.

Harry had never before witnessed intercision, but he’d read of it in books. He knew that it was no small feat, requiring an unimaginable amount of power. He knew, too, that no person had ever come out of such an operation fully in possession of his or her higher functions.

By all rights, Silence should have been comatose. Harry was beyond relieved that she was not.

The officers, however, were deeply disturbed.

‘There are tribes that I know of on the African continent,’ he attempted, in vain, to elucidate, ‘Sometimes it is a ritual process. In the Atlas States plantation officers use it as a form of enslavement –’

‘But why?’ Apólonia had exclaimed, then, ‘Why would she do such a – a _monstrous_ thing to herself?’ Much to everyone’s surprise, she had begun to weep, and Captain Fitzjames had turned his head away in mortification.

‘I have seen witches travel great distances without their dæmons,’ Blanky offered, ‘But never a complete tear.’

‘Yes, but she is not a witch,’ Harry snapped, irritated, ‘She is a human woman.’

‘Nobody is disputing that, Mister Goodsir,’ Captain Crozier interjected, ‘but the fact still remains that Lady Silence has committed an act most unnatural, and for that she must be punished.’

‘Banished, you mean.’

‘From the _Terror_. Should she choose to accompany us when we leave on foot is beyond my control.’ He, too, felt it cruel to judge the girl so harshly. But if word got out of the intercision – that a zombi, a soulless shell, was haunting their company – then Francis would have a mutiny on his hands.

How could Harry explain to him that when he cupped Silence’s face, pressed his forehead to hers, her eyes were as black and as lively as Tarkik’s had been? That, when she smiled, it was with the dæmon’s sloping, falcon’s smile? That he still lived within her?

He’d sound like a madman.

 

**________________**

 

He had always loved Apólonia regardless of the rumors she aroused – of his birth mother, of his illegitimacy. There was a vitality to her spirit that James could only imitate and paled in comparison to. It was Apólonia who had first dreamt of running away to sea when they were children, and Apólonia who had compelled him to resign from his position in Winchester in order to join the _Euphrates_. Apólonia was James without shame, without pretention, and now – on the forefront of what was meant to be their most momentous achievement – she was dying.

It was easy to hide it from the others, of course. That she was losing fur in clumps was hardly damning evidence. Most everyone looked rather the worse for wear – Blanky’s Tamsin was missing a leg, for pity’s sake. That her friend Apólonia should ride with her in the gyropter made perfect sense. Similarly, when James carried her about camp, swaddled like a baby, nobody so much as batted an eye – she was already thought of snidely as a pampered and demanding thing. Only Francis, it seemed, suspected, and it was Francis who rushed to his side James keeled over in the harness, sweating bullets, retching into the shale.

‘You are unwell,’ he stated, plainly, reaching for his handkerchief.

‘We are _all_ unwell, Francis,’ he coughed, ‘You needn’t treat me like a woman.’

‘Where is Apólonia?’

Resignedly, too weak to argue, he gestured toward the sled, where the broken gyropter sat gleaming in the sunlight.

‘Then there you shall be.’

Together with Sorcha – who was almost the size of a man herself – Francis managed to haul him to where Apólonia lay, her tongue lolling from her jaw. When she saw James, she raised her head eagerly in greeting, only to quickly collapse under the weight of her own skull.

‘Did we make camp?’ she asked, in a rasping voice.

‘No, pet, not yet.’  

Her large green eyes, sunken in their sockets, gazed at him with feverish adoration. ‘Did I do well, James?’

With a choked-off sound, Francis turned away, removing his hat.

James ignored him, summoning up a wobbly smile. ‘Very well, pet. Just marvelous. Oxford ought to give you an award.’

Apólonia, sighing beatifically, closed her eyes. ‘I am sorry.’

‘Whatever for?’

‘I’ve been a terrible burden to you, haven’t I?’

‘No.’ James grasped her by the collar, jostling her. ‘No, you silly goose, you have not. You are the joy of my life.’

‘Am I?’ James could feel it, that she was slipping into unconsciousness. ‘That’s nice.’

It was a credit to Francis’s fried nerves that he had the foresight to reach for his second-in-command before he toppled to the ground. James felt – as did Apólonia, when he gently readjusted her position – like a bag of bones, and Francis wondered that he’d ever considered them to be plump, spoilt creatures.

 

**________________**

 

‘How long do they have?’

Hickey’s expression was like the barrel of a gun trained toward the chaplain. Once, Harry might have found the prospect of such violence frightening. Now, he only finds the caulker’s mate pitiful.

‘Mister Gibson will walk tomorrow, perhaps even the next day. But it would be inconceivable to demand such a thing of Jolyon.’

‘Incon—’ Hickey laughed, a barking, mirthless thing, and scrubbed at his beard.

‘You’re lying,’ Izett snapped.

‘What reason do we have to lie?’ Berenice retorted.

‘It’s alright.’ Gibson, god bless him, sounded as if he were apologizing. ‘Take the gyropter, Cornelius. I’ll wait here.’

‘You’ll do no such thing.’ Hickey rounded on Harry. ‘The portal, then. You’ll open it.’

‘I cannot.’

‘You’re a theologian, of course you can.’ He peered at Harry, searchingly. ‘Or is that simply an honorary title? Are you only a lab assistant after all?’

‘To create a rift would be to expose ourselves to the Tuunbaq. Perhaps to something even worse. Who is to say we won’t miscalculate, and wind up crushed to atoms like Sir John?’

‘Who is to say, indeed?’ Hickey leant forward, the timbre of his voice dropping conspiratorially. ‘I am not a foolish man, Mister Goodsir. Your Captain Crozier would, of course, be walking in ahead of me.’

Harry smiled flatly. ‘I will not be party to any of your acts of slaughter, Mister Hickey.’

A moment passed in which Harry was certain he would be struck, or skewered. But Hickey only appeared to deflate in disappointment, pinching the bridge of his nose. Jolyon, whimpering softly, limped his way over and laid his head upon Hickey’s knee, a sight so uniquely despondent Harry couldn’t help but stare.

‘Hush now, hush,’ Hickey soothed, running his fingers through the dæmon’s coat – Gibson, too, seeming to calm beneath the phantom touch. _Oh_ , Harry thought, _so that’s how it is_. He was surprised. He’d thought Hickey incapable of loving anything besides himself and Izett.

‘My boys,’ murmured the caulker’s mate, sadly, ‘My very good boys. Whatever will we do with you?’

‘Take the gyropter. Save yourself –’

‘Shh.’ Hickey leant down, pressing his lips to Jolyon’s brow. ‘Shh, shh, shh.’

He would not go, Harry reasoned. He was too proud. His hubris would kill the both of them.

It was as he was thinking this that the caulker’s mate took up Jolyon’s head and, with a sour twist of his mouth, snapped the creature’s neck. The dæmon cascaded into dust and Gibson, placid and uncomprehending, toppled to the floor in a ragged heap.

Berenice let out a strangled scream, leaping forward to help, but was quickly pinned to the ground by Izett.

‘Now. Where were we?’

‘You – you –!’

‘The portal, Mister Goodsir,’ the caulker uttered, very darkly, ‘I’d say you’re fairly party now, wouldn’t you?’

Harry cringed as Izett’s claws raked across Berenice’s muzzle, the scratch scything hot across his face. Hickey gripped his shirtfront in a vise-hold.

‘The portal, Mister Goodsir,’ he repeated, breath hot in Harry’s ear, ‘or I dab Lieutenant Hodgson next.’ Here, he smiled, and this was somehow more chilling. ‘I trust that we understand each other.’

 

**________________**

 

By evening, they were gone. Francis sat with the body till sunup, thinking it unjust that James should go to the grave alone, deprived of half his soul. Before he rose to attend to the burial, Sorcha had appeared with something golden hanging from her teeth. Apólonia’s pendant.

‘I thought it best we hide it,’ she explained, in a hollow tone of voice, ‘Lest Hickey and his men…’

Francis thumbed the sleep from his eyes. ‘You don’t want to keep it?’ he croaked, to which Sorcha shook her head. Francis thought of how enviously she’d coveted that collar, watched her now as she nudged it along the canvas toward him. He’d never seen her so miserable.

‘I did not think –’ She paused, cocking her head in that way unique to dogs, ‘I did not think I’d grow to love them quite so much. They snuck up on me.’

Francis opened his mouth to commiserate, but decided against it. Instead he simply tousled Sorcha about the ears, fondly, and then clambered to his feet. There was a grave to dig.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> For those of you wondering:  
> \- Evangelista is a barn owl  
> \- Berenice is an European otter  
> \- Patience is a Manchester terrier  
> \- Jolyon is a springer spaniel  
> \- and Tamsin is an Eurasian lynx  
>   
>   
> [♫](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjrmktLC-8U)


End file.
